Minimum Wage Workers In The State Of Georgia Can’t Afford Basic Needs, Like Rent

A NLIHC study reports that a worker earning minimum wage in the state of Georgia would need to work 3.5 full-time jobs to be able to maintain rent for an apartment.

For roughly 1.4 million people living in Georgia, a person earning minimum wage would need to work nearly four full-time jobs — or over 140 hours a week — to make monthly rent payments.

In the state of Georgia, where the minimum wage is not higher than the current federal standard of $7.23, the average income per hour sits at $23.44, which means a zero-bedroom apartment is not affordable for those earning the state’s average wages per hour. To be able to make rent, given Georgia’s standard minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, landlords and rental companies would have to set rental payments at $377 per month.

A new study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) ranks Georgia as the 20th state with the highest housing wage requirement in the United States. To afford an apartment in the Peach State, the 2024 “Out of Reach” report reveals that a person would potentially have to work up to 3.5 full-time minimum-wage jobs.

Per the NLIHC, Georgia citizens would need to work anywhere between 140 and 238 hours just to afford to lease apartments with one to four bedrooms. With the current seven-day workweek being made up of 168 hours, this is nearly impossible to do. Moreover, per the “Out of Reach” report, a person would only have 28 free hours a week if they wanted to maintain rent, according to the current standards in place.

Currently, according to the Fair Market Rent (FMR), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development considers prices between $1,272 and $2,242 as the average amount of an apartment, depending upon the number of bedrooms. Currently, the actual rents costs do not reflect the FMR.

While this report looks at the state of Georgia overall, it is important to note that the rental markets vary across the many cities that make up the Peach State, including Atlanta, Savannah, Albany, and a host of others. Housing vouchers deployed by the federal government, as well as local and state-level rental assistance programs across different cities in the state, are just some of the ways that current Georgia officials are attempting to alleviate concerns about the cost of rent and the effect it has on its citizens.